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If you're all about homemade costumes for Halloween, head over to Blogher where I share instructions on how to make this cute duck costume.

Two quick duck-related links for you to enjoy.

The This Peanut Looks Like a Duck website.

Betsy Bird at A Fuse #8 Production has a gander at the inspiration for our masthead.

www.baggelboy.com

At the moment Older Brother, Little Brother and I are in the middle of an intense week of rehearsals for the Ryedale Festival’s Community Opera (in North Yorkshire, UK) - this year’s production is a modernised version of the 15th Century English morality play, Everyman, which, in a nutshell, is about Death sent by God to summon Everyman, who is not at all ready, spiritually, to meet his Maker.

This therefore seemed to be the right time to read together Wolf Erlbruch’s extraordinary picture-book Duck, Death and the Tulip (Gecko Press, 2008) - and the book’s translator, Catherine Chidgey, deserves a special mention too! It might seem strange to describe a book about death as beautiful but then, as I have just said, this is an extraordinary book. As Death slips Duck’s lifeless body into “the great river” at the end, the reader is filled with a deep sense of peace, as well as a rueful recognition of the truth of Death’s final thought: “But that’s life” - and perhaps what this story gets across particularly poignantly, but totally matter-of-factly, is that where there is life, death is inevitable. Duck is definitely horrified (and frightened) to discover at the beginning that Death is stalking her. Who wouldn’t be? Then a surprising thing happens - Duck starts to make friends with Death. What follows includes some exquisite moments, such as where Death gets cold when Duck takes him off to the pond for a swim -

‘Are you cold?’ Duck asked. ‘Shall I warm you a little?’
Nobody had ever offered to do that for Death.

Duck’s musings offer much food for thought: all the time she is preparing herself for the fact that sometime soon, she’s not sure exactly when, she will die. Erlbruch’s writing is deft in expressing the tension between loving life and preparing to let go of it. His artwork is haunting too and Duck, Death and the Tulip is a worthy follow-up to Erlbruch’s 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustration.

A caveat, though: straightforward as it appears, Duck, Death and the Tulip raises complex ideas, which need to be given discussion space. This, however, may be as much to reassure adults that the book has indeed conveyed its life-affirming core, as to clarify any misunderstandings on the part of children. It would be a good choice of story to talk about the death from old age of a loved one - though not when grief is raw. Our context was Everyman. Erlbruch’s cultural heritage includes Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. What stories do you have in your culture which link Life and Death?

Here's a dippy Duck..
Quack quack..

P

by Renee Kirchner, Teaching Tips Contributing Editor

A rebus story is a story that is not just made with words. It is a story that combines words and pictures. The picture can represent an entire word or part of a word. The reader will have to sound out each syllable of a word when they read the rebus story.

This type of story writing is an excellent way for young writers to begin writing stories. They can draw pictures for some of the longer words that give them difficulty.

The best way to begin to write a rebus story is to write out the entire story in words. Then go back and read the story out loud to yourself. Listen to each syllable of each word. For example: Sunday (This word could be represented by a picture of the sun and the word “day”).

Use the following story starters to write a winter rebus story.

1. I was sledding down a giant hill when suddenly….

2. Sharp icicles hung from my garage. I saw the neighborhood bully walking by just as some of the icicles started to break loose. He….

3. I made a nice round snowman dressed in a hat and scarf. When I woke up the next morning he was missing. What happened to him?

4. I was skating on the pond by my house when suddenly the ice cracked. I hollered and hollered for help. I started slipping into the freezing water…

5. Describe the most beautiful sunset you have ever seen. What were you doing while you watched it?

6. In my hometown it never snows. I knew it would take a miracle to get snow on Christmas Eve. The weatherman said it might happen this year …..

7. I had never been snow skiing before. I went to ski school and you will never believe what happened to me. I started down the hill….

8. My friend dared me to stick out my tongue and touch it to the freezing cold light pole. Now I am stuck. What will happen to me?

9. The animals and birds outside of my house must be very cold. Here is what I did for them.

10. My goals for the New Year are….